Defence Minister defends the indefensible

THE Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, does not give too many interviews. But last Thursday, he was cornered by reporters as he emerged from a National Security Council (NSC) meeting at the Aso Villa in Abuja, and pinned down to about two main questions: why herdsmen attacks have been left virtually unchecked; and what motivates the killers. Reporters were quite clear whatever the Defence minister had to say would be of capital importance and probably offer a peep into the government’s mindset, particularly why it has proved puzzlingly incapable of stanching the flow of blood where the attacks have taken place. The minister’s answers, however, shocked the reporters, not just because of the elocutionary difficulties that accompanied his answers and often marked his public speeches, but principally because of their incredible inappropriateness.

Nigerians have the enterprising State House reporters to thank for gaining insight into the workings of the Defence minister’s mind, and insight into the mysterious minds of the country’s leaders and the obvious but shocking fact that the solutions to the herdsmen killings are either not anywhere in sight or have been coloured by strange and incomprehensible interferences. Perhaps confused by the insincere and colourful answers government officials continue to give to questions pertaining to the killings in Benue State, reporters felt obliged to ask the minister, who was expected to know, what factors were responsible for the crisis.

Apart from acknowledging that he emerged from the NSC meeting with the president, the minister suggested that remote and immediate causes explained the crisis. There the wonders began. On remote causes, he blamed the constriction of grazing routes over the years, due, it seems, to economic and demographic changes, but shocked reporters by suggesting the inevitability of the clashes. He spoke nothing about the antiquated mode of cattle rearing and the need to modernise dairy farming. Hear him: ” Since Independence, we know there used to be a route whereby these cattle rearers use. Cattle rearers are all over the nation. You go to Bayelsa, you see them; you go to Ogun, you see them. If those routes are blocked, what happens? These people are Nigerians; it’s just like you going to block river or shoreline, does that make sense to you?”

Luckily the Defence minister was honest with his answers which betrayed where his sentiments lie, not to talk of admitting that the offended herdsmen are Nigerians, not foreigners. But reporters were to receive a much bigger shock. Explaining the immediate causes of the clashes, the minister suggested as follows: “But what are the immediate causes? It is the grazing law. These people are Nigerians, we must learn to live together with each other, that is basic. Communities and other people must learn how to accept foreigners within their enclave, finish!” English can be a very problematic language, sometimes amplifying meanings quite unintended by the speaker. It was, however, clear that the minister was impatient with what appeared to him as public bias against the herdsmen. His impetuous answers demonstrate how easy it is to goad a minister into betraying his innermost sentiments.

From all indications, those sentiments are unpleasant to the ears. And coming a few days after the president himself begged farmers to accommodate their herdsmen countrymen in the name of God, the country is assaulted by how dangerously narrow the perspectives of the federal government have become on the crisis. With a security council that does not mirror all shades of opinions and cultures, not to say have the capacity to understand production systems, it is not difficult to see why it seems the government is more concerned about the safety and survival of the herdsmen than anything else. Worse, it does not appear as if the government has ever fully discussed all points of view on the causes of the clashes and the solutions. Officials merely reinforce one another’s jaded arguments.

The Defence minister’s point of view tallies with the president’s. Both apparently see the clashes as communal, as the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, first suggested before he was forced to recant, and as the Defence minister has now reiterated. This is why the anomaly and impracticability of establishing grazing colonies all over the country do not strike them in the face. This is why they are indeed surprised that many Nigerians, and particularly the news media, put too much emphasis on the killings. And this is why it must be bewildering to the public that the country’s Defence minister finds it difficult to see the contradictions in blaming anti-open grazing laws for killings that began before the laws were made.

No one can estimate how many deeply disappointed Nigerians continue to ponder the shameful and contradictory responses those entrusted with power over the country give to the crisis. First, they suggest that the killers were foreigners, not Nigerians. But no one bothered to explain why foreigners would be so embittered by Nigeria’s domestic policies to levy war against the country, nor why, since the authorities knew the identity of the killers, they were nevertheless reluctant to take the fight to the invaders. Today, the far-fetched suggestion is that the Benue killings were orchestrated by Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) militants. Second, there was also the suggestion that what was taking place was a clash of militias. Yet, no government official has volunteered proof regarding which militia is the aggressor and which militia is defending their lands. Sadly, the government which should help navigate a way out of the crisis is either paralysed or has proved spectacularly incompetent. Third, after spending months ignoring the killings that predated the anti-open grazing laws, and after being tongue-tied over killings in states where those laws do not exist, the government now bizarrely blames laws enacted in response to the clashes and killings.

Until the government finds the depth of knowledge needed to appreciate the factors predisposing the country to farmers/herdsmen clashes, and develops the requisite impartiality needed to sustain the integrity and independence which the constitution demands of them, they will simply make a mess of the problem, divide the country further, and banish the peace required for long-term development. It is troubling that no one in government seems to know the right thing to do, and those who do, lack the courage to make their voices heard. The country is thus virtually divided into two on this matter, and the divisions are ossifying because the government is either complicit or incompetent.